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New Michael Phelps Ad Tries to Capitalize on Marijuana Controversy
Check out Subway's new "Be Yourself" ad featuring Michael Phelps:The ad concludes "You can always be yourself at Subway." The whole thing is a brilliantly veiled reference to the backlash against Kellogg's that emerged when they dropped Phelps for smoking pot. Better yet, Subway has launched a new promotional website at Subwayfreshbuzz.com. You see what they're doing, right?The new campaign is already generating tons of press coverage, including positive reactions to the ad's apparent reference to the infamous marijuana incident. It's a brilliant maneuver by Subway and, hopefully, an early indicator that corporate America is finally learning that it makes more sense to wink at pot culture than risk alienating it.Once again, I'm humbled by the immeasurable impact of the Michael Phelps marijuana saga. I'm seeing discussion of the Kellogg's boycott reemerging in comment threads around the web today and I don't think one can easily exaggerate what a major event that was, and still is, for our cause. Along with the intense and heavily-publicized popularity of marijuana reform questions on the President's website, it's becoming widely understood that marijuana culture has a tremendous and now powerfully intimidating web presence.In the age of viral web marketing and online-everything, the visible web presence of marijuana culture becomes a potent weapon that's now reshaping the debate right before our eyes. For fear of offending us, the President and his drug czar can scarcely utter more than a vague sentence in defense of our marijuana laws. Meanwhile, the mainstream press is hustling marijuana stories like dimebags in a city park. And Subway is celebrating freedom of personal choice in a new ad campaign featuring the world's most famous marijuana user.The war remains, but the battlefield has changed. I can smell it, like the aroma of fresh baked bread wafting free from the entrance of the Subway down the block from our office, which I might just visit tomorrow for the first time in a while.
South Dakota Judge Sentences Marijuana Reform Activist to Shut Up
South Dakota's most well-known marijuana legalization advocate, Bob Newland, was sentenced yesterday to a year in the Pennington County Jail with all but 45 days suspended for felony marijuana possession--a little less than four ounces. Once he does his time, he'll be on probation for a year. Newland can, I suppose, consider himself fortunate. According to the South Dakota Department of Corrections, there are currently six people imprisoned for possession of less than half a pound and seven for more than half but less than one pound, as well as 14 doing time for distribution of less than an ounce and another 25 doing time for distribution of less than a pound. But in another respect, Newland is not so lucky. He has basically been stripped of his First Amendment right to advocate for marijuana legalization while he is on probation. As the Associated Press reported: A longtime South Dakota supporter of legalized marijuana has been sentenced to serve 45 days in jail for possessing the illegal drug. Authorities say Bob Newland of Hermosa was found with four bags of marijuana, a scale and $385 in cash when he was stopped for speeding in March. He pleaded guilty in May to a possession charge under a plea agreement in which prosecutors agreed to drop a more serious charge of possession with intent to distribute. Newland will be on probation for the rest of the year following his jail term. During his probation, he is barred from publicly advocating the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Newland, understandably, is not inclined to challenge the probation condition. There's something about staring at the walls of a jail cell that does that to a guy. But that doesn't mean others shouldn't raise a stink about this arguably unconstititional sentence. I'll be looking into this and will have a Chronicle story about it on Friday.
Jim Webb's Quest to Reform the War on Drugs Gains Momentum
The Washington Post has a long and rather glowing examination of Virginia Senator Jim Webb's effort to reform U.S. drug policy and the criminal justice system:"I am, at bottom, a writer," he says, invoking his default response. "I start with a theme, rather than a plot." Webb wants to shape a plotline that, with each turn of the page, draws America closer to reinventing its criminal justice system. Questioning why the United States locks up so many of its youths, why its prisons swell with disease and atrocities while fundamental social problems persist in its streets, has earned Webb lavish praise as a politician unafraid to be smeared as soft on crime. And when a law-and-order type as rock-ribbed as Webb expresses willingness to consider legalizing or decriminalizing drugs, excitement follows.  Indeed it does. The whole article is worth reading, as it really captures the energy that's beginning to build behind Webb's efforts. There's nothing surprising about this to anyone who's been paying attention to the drug policy debate that has been escalating for years and erupting in recent months.Still, even The Washington Post itself has been slow to grasp the potency of Webb's call for reform. Last December, The Post published a similarly lengthy account of Jim Webb's quest to reform criminal justice policies, but that article portrayed him as a crazy idealist stepping into political hot water:"It is a gamble for Webb, a fiery and cerebral Democrat from a staunchly law-and-order state.""â¦as the country struggles with two wars overseas and an ailing economy, overflowing prisons are the last thing on many lawmakers' minds.""â¦Webb has never been one to rely on polls or political indicators to guide his way.""Some say Webb's go-it-alone approach could come back to haunt him."And yet The Post is now reporting that Webb's efforts are gaining support, including "encouraging signals" from Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and even President Obama. The Post's earlier suggestion that Webb's efforts could alienate him were based on the same "soft-on-crime" political theory that we've been hearing for two decades now. The second they got wind of Webb's criminal justice reform proposal, they interviewed a bunch of people about what a maverick he is and how his ideas are so unique. The whole thing reeked of the implication that only a strange politician would care about improving our criminal justice system.To be fair, yes, Jim Webb is a bit of a maverick and clearly his plan is unique. I don't fault The Post for making Webb's personality part of the story. But it didn't make sense to frame criminal justice reform as a fringe idea and it's not at all surprising that The Post is now forced to concede Webb's political savvy. Obama spoke on the campaign trail about "shifting the model" in the war on drugs, and while that was hardly the defining issue of his candidacy, it was utterly uncontroversial throughout the campaign. It's a simple fact that criminal justice reform, including discussion of reexamining drug laws, is a perfectly legitimate and mainstream political topic that any politician can approach without inviting any consequential backlash.One of the most immediate and intrinsically valuable aspects of Webb's effort is precisely that it serves as a mechanism for illustrating the importance of this discussion. I don't doubt that it will become controversial (if our drug policy truly faces due scrutiny as Webb intends), but by the time that happens, he will have firmly established the principle that debating criminal justice policies is a relevant and necessary exercise at this moment in American politics. If we can reach a point at which the media coverage is focused on the issue, rather than the personality quirks of Jim Webb himself, that's when we'll know his efforts are paying off.
Excellent Drug Policy Book Available for Free
Mike Gray's superb book Drug Crazy: How We Got into this Mess & How We Can Get Out is now available for free online. Mike is best known as screenwriter of the classic film The China Syndrome, though Drug Crazy has become a classic in its own right. It's the first book I recommend to folks who are new to drug policy reform, but it's also a fascinating read even if you've been following these issues for a long time.I've you haven't read it yet, this is the perfect opportunity.
Jackson death creates witch hunt
Of all the flak that's been stirred up by the recent death of M.J.,the king of pop,the scariest is the dea's searching for doctors that prescribed various pain medications.As a person taking large dos
New Study: Marijuana Doesnât Increase Your Risk of Going Crazy
Remember two years ago when some scientists announced that marijuana causes psychosis and the press, along with the entire nation of Great Britain, went borderline psycho just from thinking about it?Well, Paul Armentano at NORML reports that a new study has proven that the whole thing was just a bunch of crazy talk:â[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10 year period. This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. ⦠This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence.âIn non-sciency terms, this means that when rates of marijuana use go up, rates of mental illness do not. Therefore, we can conclude that marijuana apparently doesn't cause anyone to develop psychosis who otherwise wouldnât have. It's really a shame that this now-debunked junk science about marijuana and psychosis led the British government to increase penalties for marijuana. But, as we know all too well, fits of ignorance and distortion are causally linked to an increased risk of bad drug legislation.
Innocent Teenage Girls Forced to "Jump Up and Down" During Marijuana Search
Following the Supreme Court's recent decision that school officials violated the 4th Amendment when they strip-searched a 13-year-old girl, another similar lawsuit has been filed and the story is equally sickening:According to the complaint, the incident began when the bus arrived at the school and two employees boarded it in order to resolve a dispute in which the girls were not involved. The employees "smelled what they thought was marijuana," the complaint states, and five girls seated at the back of the bus, including Gaither and S.C., were detained and searched.â¦During an interrogation that lasted the entire school day, and after being denied repeated requests to call their parents, the girls were required to "remove their shoes and socks, unbuckle their belts, unbutton their pants, and unzip their pants," the complaint says. They also had their "waistlines physically touched and searched" by a male employee while their pants were undone, and were made to "lift up their bras while their shirts remained on and jump up and down."The searches were all performed behind closed doors and without the presence of police offices or female staff, the suit says. No marijuana was found. [Courthouse News]The whole thing is so perverse and disturbing, it really ought to be examined in criminal court as well as civil. By the time a group of teenage girls was ordered lift their bras and hop up and down, it wasn't just a drug search anymore. This was something much sicker than that. But you can thank decades of propaganda-fueled marijuana hysteria for creating the environment in which school officials think they can get away with stuff like this.
Can You Name One Good Thing About the War on Marijuana?
On the heels of its successful effort to allow medical marijuana dispensaries, the Rhode Island Senate has voted to launch a comprehensive study of marijuana laws in general. They'll seek to answer these questions, among others:Whether and to what extent Rhode Island youth have access to marijuana despite current laws prohibiting its use; Â Whether adults' use of marijuana has decreased since marijuana became illegal in Rhode Island in 1918; Â Â Whether the current system of marijuana prohibition has created violence in the state of Rhode Island against users or among those who sell marijuana; Â Â Whether the proceeds from the sales of marijuana are funding organized crime, including drug cartels;The costs associated with the current policies prohibiting marijuana sales and possession, including law enforcement, judicial, public defender, and corrections costs; Whether there have been cases of corruption related to marijuana law enforcement;The experience of individuals and families sentenced for violating marijuana laws;The experience of states and European countries, such as California, Massachusetts and the Netherlands, which have decriminalized the sale and use of marijuana; Hmm, I think I can tackle this one: Yes, No, Yes, Yes, Enormous, You don't even want to know, Heartbreaking, Impressive.This is yet another superb effort from RI legislators and it really sets the standard for how public representatives ought to be examining these laws. These are central questions that, if answered honestly, will drive a stake through the heart of marijuana prohibition once and for all.
Opponents of Marijuana Legalization Will Say Anything
This letter in the Montgomery Advertiser is a mind-numbing illustration of the vivid imaginations that local anti-drug activists can frequently be found to possess:Assume the government legalizes pot. It will be taxed (federal and state) and regulated for THC content. Do drug cartels just fold their tent? Hardly. Simply offer a more potent product at a lower cost -- tax-free, of course. Higher THC content is the goal of all serious pot smokers -- check out any issue of High Times, or the myriad of Internet sites offering more potent seeds.Note to prohibitionists: the second you find yourself arguing that no one will buy legal pot, you've gone off the rails badly. If you wanna talk about the advertisers in High Times, what about the ones that make money hand over fist selling legal herbs that merely look like pot? Legal pot will be an extremely popular product among people who like pot. You don't have to worry about that.And if you find yourself arguing that drug cartels can stay in business despite sudden widespread competition by simply improving their product and lowering their prices, maybe you should stop to consider how ridiculous that sounds. If they do that, they'll go broke overnight, hence you just accidentally stumbled across the exact reason why legalizing marijuana will annihilate the black market for pot. It really shouldnât be necessary to explain that drug cartels thrive on astronomical black market inflation. Everything they are and everything they do revolves around the massive drug monopoly that prohibition bestows upon them. If you take that away, they are nothing.But if the fundamentals of black market economics continue to escape anyone, I suppose we could always just agree to legalize potent pot as well.
I went to visit Will Foster in Jail A Couple of Nights Ago
I wrote about the Will Foster case in the Chronicle last week. Here's a brief summary: Foster had a small medical marijuana garden in Tulsa that was raided in 2005. Two years later, he was sentenced to an insane 93 YEARS in prison. Only after a publicity campaign in which DRCNet played a vital role was he resentenced to merely 20 years, and after being twice denied parole, he was paroled to California. Although Oklahoma thought Foster should be on parole until 2011, California decided he didn't need any more state supervision and released him from parole after three years. That wasn't punitive enough for Oklahoma. Although Foster had left the Bible Belt state behind with no intention of ever returning, Oklahoma parole officials issued a parole violation warrant for his extradition to serve out the remainder of his sentence. When Foster had to show ID in a police encounter, the warrant popped up, and he was jailed. Desperate, Foster filed a writ of habeas corpus and won! A California judge ruled the warrant invalid, and Foster was a free man again. But not for long. It's thirst for vengeance still unslaked, the state of Oklahoma issued yet another parole violation warrant for Foster's extradition because he refused to agree to an extension of his parole to 2015--four years past the original Oklahoma parole date. Then he got raided in California, thanks to bad information from an informant with an axe to grind. Foster had a legal medical marijuana grow, but it took a hard-headed Sonoma County prosecutor more than a year to drop charges, and Foster has been jailed the whole time. Now that the charges have been dropped, Foster still isn't free because Oklahoma still wants him back. Extradition warrants have been signed by the governors of both states, and he was days away from being extradited in shackles when he filed a new habeas writ this week. Filing the writ will stop him from being sent back to Oklahoma, but it also means he's stuck in jail for the foreseeable future. The writ is a legal strategy; his real best hope is to get one of those governors to rescind the extradition order. You can help. Click on this link to find out how to write the governors. I think a campaign of letters to the editor of Oklahoma papers might help, too. Those letters might ask why Oklahoma wants to continue to spend valuable tax dollars to persecute a harmless man whose only crime was to try to get some relief for his ailments--and who has no intention of ever returning there. ...So, anyway, I went to see Will at the Sonoma County Jail Saturday night. But I didn't get in. The steel-toes in my footwear set off the metal detector, and I quickly found out such apparel was a security risk. Who knew? I'll go back later this week. I guess I'll wear sandals. In the meantime, there are letters waiting to be written. Keyboard commandos, saddle up!
A Surprise Encounter With Former Drug Czar John Walters
I've wondered a thousand times what I'd do if I ran into John Walters somewhere around D.C. I figured that the odds favored it happening eventually. A few times, I even thought I saw him, only to discover that it was just some stiff angry guy in a suit scowling at schoolchildren and spitting at hippies. But as luck would have it, long-time marijuana policy reformer and smooth-talker Steve Fox just happened to be riding the right subway train at the right time:While riding the Metroâs Red Line yesterday, I spotted former drug czar John Walters entering the train. When he ended up standing right beside me, I realized I couldnât pass up the chance for a conversation. I know it sounds like a fruitless endeavor, but Iâm an eternal optimist and thought, âMaybe if we have a casual lunch together, heâll come to see the folly of keeping marijuana illegal.âWhole story at the MPP blog. I think Steve handled it maturely, but I always thought it would be funny to do the exact opposite of what he did. Instead of introducing myself as an opponent, perhaps I'd be a rabid drug czar fan. "John Walters, is that really you? I just loved your policies. I used to read PushingBack.com every day. Did you see how Obama's people deleted all the old posts? What's up with that? Anyway, I was thinking about starting an anti-legalization organization with some of my friends from Yale. Maybe we could do lunch sometime?"If that plan somehow worked, I bet I'd learn more in an hour of pretending to agree with him than a lifetime of butting heads. Hey Steve, what train was that?
Obama Seeks Volunteer Drug War Soldiers
Everybody loves volunteerism, but this is just nuts:WASHINGTON (AP) â The Obama administration is developing plans to seek up to 1,500 National Guard volunteers to step up the military's counter-drug efforts along the Mexican border, senior administration officials said Monday.The plan is a stopgap measure being worked out between the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department, and comes despite Pentagon concerns about committing more troops to the border â a move some officials worry will be seen as militarizing the region.Well, what the hell else would it be seen as? We're not sending these dudes down there to do landscaping. Pete Guither thinks it will end badly:Take soldiers trained for war, seek out volunteers out of those who specifically would like to fight a drug war, arm them, and put them on American soil near a potentially volatile border.Get ready for another Esequiel Hernandez -- possibly many.The whole thing really is a recipe for disaster, as if the drug war isnât enough of a disaster already. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but there are still people in our government dreaming up dumb drug war ideas that no one's thought of before.
An Awesome Marijuana Debate on the McLaughlin Group
When you're seeing a discussion like this on the McLaughlin Group, you know marijuana reform has gone mainstream:On a program that's frequently characterized by fervent debate and hostile exchanges, often to the point of being unbearable, the guests actually seem to be largely in agreement about moving beyond marijuana prohibition. Wow. We've come a long, long way.
U.S. Admits Failure, Calls Off Opium Eradication in Afghanistan
This is big news:TRIESTE, Italy (Reuters) - Washington is to dramatically overhaul its Afghan anti-drug strategy, phasing out opium poppy eradication, the U.S. envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan told allies on Saturday.â¦"The Western policies against the opium crop, the poppy crop, have been a failure. They did not result in any damage to the Taliban, but they put farmers out of work," [Richard] Holbrooke told Reuters after a series of bilateral meetings in Italy."We are not going to support crop eradication. We're going to phase it out," he said. [Reuters]It's not everyday that a major international drug war program gets the rug pulled out from under it. Only two months ago, the plan was to increase eradication efforts by flooding Afghanistan's major opium producing regions with U.S troops. It was a terrible plan for lots of reasons, thus this sudden reversal is a surprising positive development.Put simply, it appears that the State Dept. was trying to choose between escalating eradication efforts or eliminating them. After weighing their options, they eventually made the right decision. It would be nice to see a similar analysis applied to the war on drugs in its entirety.
Boring Drug War Reporting From the Mainstream Press
Last week, the UN released a major report that, for the first time, acknowledges and condemns the growing movement to legalize drugs, while simultaneously endorsing decriminalization for many drug crimes. No matter what your views on drug policy may be, it's remarkable that the UN is jumping headfirst into the legalization debate. It's equally notable that they're calling on countries around the world to reconsider policies of arresting users for small amounts of drugs.Tragically, however, reporters at the Associated Press and USA Today somehow managed to take this groundbreaking report and turn it into something far less interesting. Both stories focus almost entirely on fluctuations in illicit drug production, which should be perfectly predictable by now to anyone who's followed international drug policy over a period of years. It's worth mentioning, but there's nothing new or exciting about it, particularly in the context of a report that was otherwise overflowing with controversial, politically-charged content.Both stories buried the report's discussion of decriminalization, with USA Today's Donna Leinwand even managing to withhold mention of it until the very last line. What could have been a thought-provoking story about the international drug war leadership calling for fewer drug arrests was instead just another annual accounting of the drug war's progress (or lack thereof).The point here isn't that an avowed partisan such as myself wants more media coverage that's favorable to my views. Of course I do. But my own prejudices notwithstanding, it's just a fact that the political focus of this report was unprecedented and powerfully newsworthy. The document literally begins on its first page with a heated discussion of how controversial the drug war has become, yet AP and USA Today failed to even mention this central theme of the report.It's not a matter of taking sides, but rather simply acknowledging controversy when that's a major dimension of the story. It's in your interest to do this. The vigorous political debate that now surrounds the war on drugs is the easily the most effective angle for attracting readership to your drug policy coverage. Ironically, Leinwand's USA Today piece has links at the top of the page encouraging readers to submit the story to news aggregator sites including Digg and Reddit, which can exponentially increase your traffic. And guess what kinds of stories Digg and Reddit users are looking for. It's hilarious to find USA Today deliberately courting traffic from online communities that are obsessed with drug policy reform, while simultaneously ignoring the hooks that appeal to those audiences. Framing the story around the topics of legalization and decriminalization wouldnât just have been appropriate under the circumstances, it would have made for a better headline, more links, discussion and traffic.If you donât believe me, write the story I'm suggesting and watch it outperform your initial coverage. I dare you.
Marijuana Expo Draws 20,000 to LA Convention Center
Another short video from Mike Gray, for Common Sense for Drug Policy. This one is from Todd McCormick's recent THC Expo in Los Angeles -- as Mike describes it, the "[l]argest marijuana merchandising exhibit in US History," "draw[ing] crowds and exhibitors from all over the world to the Los Angeles Convention Center." This could not happen if marijuana were not basically accepted by society, or a large part of it, despite the retrograde laws that still see thousands arrested daily. View the first video in the series, "Retirees Demand Marijuana," here. In case anyone doesn't know who Mike Gray is, by the way, you should know that he's a distinguished filmmaker and author, whose credits include the late 1970s Jane Fonda-Jack Lemmon-Michael Douglas movie The China Syndrome, as well as extensive work on the Star Trek: The Next Generation series. In drug policy he is well known as author of the book Drug Crazy, possibly the best introduction to the madness of the drug war yet written. (Mike's a member of our advisory board too.)
LEAP Confronts The Drug Czar at a Press Conference
The irony is truly remarkable. Kerlikowske claims legalization isn't in his vocabulary, yet the whole purpose of the press conference is to present a report that discusses legalization at great length. The drug czar's strategy of trying not to legitimize our position is completely at odds with the approach of the UN, thus he ultimately just comes across as unprepared. And that's exactly what he is. He's so unprepared to defend the drug war, he must pretend that legalization doesn't exist. It isn't going to work.Click here to help our friends at LEAP send a message to the UN that it's time to move beyond the war on drugs.
Supreme Court Upholds Fourth Amendment in Strip Search Case
Today, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Safford Unified School District #1 et al v. Redding that school officials violated the 4th Amendment when they strip-searched a 13-year-old girl. Savana Redding was subjected to a strip-search that included looking inside her underwear, after school officials received a tip that she might be in possession of prescription Ibuprofen. None was found.By a strong majority, the Court declared the search unreasonable under the 4th Amendment, finding that a full strip search was unjustified based on the nature of the drugs and in question and the absence of specific evidence that contraband would be found in her underwear. Unfortunately, despite upholding the 4th Amendment in this case, the Court left the door wide open for future violations of student rights. The justices agreed by a 7-2 vote that the school officials who carried out the illegal search should not be held liable because the caselaw was unclear at the time. Now that the central legal issues are settled, similar incidents could invoke liability in the future, but the ruling itself will fail to prohibit such searches in many instances. By placing heavy emphasis on the negligible threat posed by prescription Ibuprofen, the Court implies that a different outcome may have been reached depending on the type of contraband in question. It's possible, for example, that the search would have been upheld if it involved marijuana.Thus, today's ruling fails to fully clarify the legality of drug searches in schools under many circumstances. It also fails to punish those responsible for degrading an innocent young woman based on flimsy and ultimately false evidence. Hopefully, however, it will at least serve as a reminder to educators that schools are not a 4th Amendment-free zone.
United Nations Argues for Decriminalization
Despite opening with an attack on legalization, the UN's new World Drug Report 2009 is refreshingly candid about the limitations of the criminal justice approach to drug use. Ryan Grim at Huffington Post notes that the report praises Portugal's decriminalization policy, which is remarkable considering that the UN had previously "suggested the policy was in violation of international drug treaties and would encourage 'drug tourism.'" Attitudes are beginning to change at the UN, as this passage from the report clearly illustrates:At times, drug possession can serve as a pretext to detain an otherwise dangerous or suspect individual, but otherwise, the law must allow for non-custodial alternatives when a police officer stumbles upon small amounts of drugs. It is important that the incident be documented and the opportunity availed to direct the user to treatment if required, but it is rarely beneficial to expend limited prison space on such offenders. According to surveys, between a quarter and a half of the population of many countries in Europe and North America has been in possession of illicit drugs at one time or another in their lives. Most remained productive citizens. In only a small share of these cases would arrest, and the lifelong stigma it brings, have been appropriate.Yes! Stop arresting people for drugs. Good call, guys. This is a pretty straightforward endorsement of decriminalization, and it's exciting to hear this kind of rhetoric coming from the United Nations. Decriminalization won't solve many of the worst consequences of the war on drugs, but ending prohibition is impossible without first establishing a consensus that arresting drug users is bad policy. It looks like this concept is beginning to sink in.